


eclipse the dark

by nefertiti



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Canon Era, Gen, Philosophy, Romanticism, accidental references to OFPD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-30
Updated: 2014-03-30
Packaged: 2018-01-17 15:24:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,254
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1392649
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nefertiti/pseuds/nefertiti
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The cafe was dark and in the corner sat two men speaking quietly in the low candlelight.  On the table, there was an old fashioned hat, a key, three empty bottles of wine and a bottle half done, a book and two candles in their holders. It had been hours ago since the room had been cleared, every person with sense had bid each other goodnight and had long since retreated to their homes, away from the peril that is Paris at the time when the sun slumbers peacefully. But Prouvaire and Grantaire, a Romantic poet and a romantic Romantic, had never placed too high a value on wisdom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	eclipse the dark

The cafe was dark and in the corner sat two men speaking quietly in the low candlelight.  On the table, there was an old fashioned hat, a key, three empty bottles of wine and a bottle half done, a book and two candles in their holders. It had been hours ago since the room had been cleared, every person with sense had bid each other goodnight and had long since retreated to their homes, away from the peril that is Paris at the time when the sun slumbers peacefully. But Prouvaire and Grantaire, a Romantic poet and a romantic Romantic, had never placed too high a value on wisdom.

They were so busy with their conversation that they had been having since the aftermath of their meeting that they did not notice that the room was empty until they looked up in tandem only to see Mlle. Louison flaring her nose and dropping a key on their table before striding out muttering angrily under her breath.

Here they sat as the hours dwindled, their conversation veering into the more long-winded the later it grew.

The considerably drunker of the two slammed his bottle of wine on the wooden table, jolting the poet from the quiet whispers he was growing accustomed to.

“A man once said: ‘Sexuality is the lyricism of the masses.’ And it is something I find truth in more and more each day. To have someone at their most intimate has become a most banal act. What’s the use for it anymore? For bearing a child? Paris is overrun with children who have no mother, no father and not a scrap to eat. We do not deserve more children if we cannot take care of the ones we already have. So is it for pleasure then? I can more get pleasure from my bottle than I can in the arms of a woman in my more recent memories. Is it because the fairer sex has suddenly become unappealing to me? No. It is because my interests have stopped centring itself on the pedestrian idea of lust. That is not to say that there’s anything wrong with lust, but it has become so commonplace that to speak of it no longer holds any form of disgrace. How boring it is to do something that everyone approves of. I detest the idea. I am done with humankind. We are a failed experiment, driven by primal urges that I have little care for anymore. I wish to spend my days soaked in my wine, writing terrible poetry from that tiny desk in my rooms or perhaps painting awful portraits of people who deserve to patron a much more skilled artist.”  

Grantaire paused in his ramblings to take a gulp of his wine, before waving his hand and continuing.

“Is it then arrogant for me to compare myself to that of an artist? I have never been talented enough for that word to be used in any sort of reference towards myself. I am not an artist. No, but my soul is one of an artist’s. I abhor man and their virtues and choose instead to revel in their vice. What am I to do now that my vices have begun to dwindle? The form of a courtesan used to thrill my soul, a vice that I revered, but now I look and I feel nothing. I have options in my vices of course now that slicking my cock no longer appeals to me. There is wine and opium, gambling and brandy, fighting and drinking. But the women who own the night? The image of a lady adjusting her hat or straightening her gloves. The cheekily displayed ankles of a grisette as she lifts her skirts to cross a puddle. Nothing. What misfortune! Am I at fault? Of course not. The world is. Lenience. How abhorrent a word. It is not that we tolerate wholly of course. I doubt we ever will. We sneer behind our hands and smile with upturned noses. Should I then feel anything; anything about anything that is? I try and I do not. How terrible it is to feel nothing.  You must be drunk without respite, I say and when am I ever not? Drunk on wine, drunk on absinthe, drunk on opium, drunk on my melancholy. My hypochondria is acting up again. It seems that I am destined to spend eternity alone, drunk and without talent. To the acceptance of one’s fate!”

Grantaire raised his glass to the empty room as almost a parody to a toast before downing the rest of his liquor. Jehan, who was sitting opposite him, had his head bowed throughout Grantaire’s entire speech. He looked up at Grantaire now, his face solemn.

“Talent, my dear Capital R, has nothing to do with anything!” Jehan, who was usually a quiet and tame sort of man, was uncharacteristically enthused by the conversation he was now having. His face was grim but his voice contained verve. “What is the importance of skill when it comes to art? There is none. Emotions however, are everything. Art is life and life without feeling is pointless.”

“I disagree.” Grantaire sighed, running his hand through his hair.

Jehan shook his head ruefully.

“How does one write a verse about an April evening spent sitting in the park without the use of sentiment? Imagine the nostalgia one feels in spring when the flowers are in bloom. It reminds me of childhoods spent picking flowers with an innocent smile not realising that I’d become an unwitting murderer. Yes, a murderer! Flowers are the real tragedy of life. I keep pots at home to contemplate on the matter. Their lives are so fleeting and yet they give so much. They give life and in return we pluck them from their homes. They are forced to slowly die in the hands of a child lost in dreams, or a lover lost in affections. Love, as anyone would have it, causes more destruction than anything in this world. It is the most disastrous thing and we refuse to live without it. Is that not beauty in itself?”

“Love,” Grantaire scoffed. “Of course you talk of love. I respect you Jean Prouvaire. You are undoubtedly full of an intelligence that refuses to be displayed as egotism. You are a skilled weaver of words and you almost fooled me with such attractive talk of disparagement. But now I must curse those words for they are covered with the stench of sanguinity. Love! The very notion sickens me.”

“You believe in nothing Grantaire, but to tell me you are not so far gone as to decry love. There _are_ some things I do not countenance.” Jehan was a cross of amused and despaired.

“Hark! Love is pointless and vindictive. A shallow banality we use to retain control over someone’s life. ‘I love you! You belong to me! You must be with me and may we never part!’ A horrifying concept. Slavery at its most approved. We live for love. We die for love. Our hearts break and we weep and we hurt and still we run into its arms when it comes around again. And when love has faded? Do we let go? No. We hold on and hope that it eventually returns. What a theatre! The most excellent play will pale in comparison to the show of two people in love, and of course the two lovers; will they be in love even after their initial ardour has cooled? What is love if not a fickle charade? What is marriage if not a contract?” Grantaire waved his hand in the air and took a swig from his almost empty bottle. “Mayhaps one does not have to love to procure that business arrangement. A miserable farce. The system is wretched and we should tear it down. At this exact moment if we can! There are some who choose to love not people, but country and to them I say ‘Hear, hear’. It is the logical choice not to tie yourself to another person. People are cruel and flawed. Some I would even go so far as to say are a stain upon civilisation. There are very few people who without a doubt possess no imperfections. If I am kind I can count perhaps eight. If I sweep through those eight vigilantly I can perhaps count one, there may be one only person on this entire planet that exists without a single imperfection to speak of. Why I speak of the sun of course! But sunlight is excruciating and it burns to the touch. We look at it, albeit not for too long. We admire it. That is all. I am afflicted with love for sunlight while I live my life in the shade and should I near it I will be set afire. And so I scorn love. For me, to love is to court death.”

“To dance with death by loving the sky.” Jehan breathed with admiration. “How remarkable! Icarus died by the sun and now you say you love it but refuse to lay a hand on it. How historians would delight in future generations learning from the triumphs and from the failures of the past! Now it pains me to say this and if asked I shall never admit to another soul of these words leaving my mouth, but I spit on history truth be told. I say you go and you touch the sun. Feel it’s warmth before it burns you alive. You live, you love, you are loved and you die. These are four of life’s inevitabilities. We all just come into possession of them at different paces. You have lived Grantaire and you love. Go be loved.”

“You ask me to deliberately take the step that puts me all the more closer into the cold embrace of Death. I refuse! When death comes for me, I will kick and I will scream and I will make it all the weaker for daring to come near me. It will not take me without a fight. I will not give it my hand and ask for it to take me gently. No. I live. I love. I will stop there for the time being.”

“You say then that you will not die for love?” asked Jehan. “What kind of love is that? It seems to me the poorest kind.”

“Alas, you misinterpret me.” Grantaire shook his head before shutting his eyes. The wine had long gone to his head and the sharp movement made the room spin. He paused and took the time to recollect himself.

“Would that I die for love if ever the time came. A shot in the heart. A blow to the head. Take me and let my love be. Let them live. It matters not if I am not loved in return. Do _they_ live when I’m sacrificed for them? Are they happy? Are they fulfilled? Do they die wrinkled and content, with no regrets? Then I am pleased. Is a love suddenly less true if it is not reciprocated?”

“On the contrary my friend, I believe that’s when it’s at its truest.” Jehan replied . He picked up the hat in front of him and fiddled with it.

“This is not about the validity of love. Love is as valid as hate as jealousy as compassion as regret. No. This is about whether or not it is well suited to the human experience. Nay I say! Love makes fools of us all. Reject it. Throw it in the sea. Destroy that path. Let the water come crashing down and drown it as God drowned the Egyptians for the Jews. Be merciless. Be wicked. Let love taste for once what it grants. And let mankind live in joy for the rest of their days. Imagine a world with no love and you will imagine a world of great peace.” Grantaire’s voice started to slur as he went on. “I speak of love of the romantic kind of course. The love associated with family is also a bitter one but the love associated with friendship is a much kinder love. I say we should all love our comrades and discard our lovers. I have been discarded a few times myself and I must say, I barely remember why I was grieved when it happened in the first place. Love. Curse the man who invented it and curse the man who carries out this tradition of torment.”

“You are a fool Grantaire. We have all lost in love, but to give up on it so wholly. He who lets himself be ruled by fear is in truth ruled by nothing. If you truly believe this then there is no more that I can say, but that you are a fool. The saddest kind of fool. For one who decries love, decries the thing that makes this very life bearable. So you have heard my words now it shall be put to bed. It is not long until dawn approaches.” Jehan’s tone of voice softened and he placed Grantaire’s hat on his head. “Perhaps we should make our leave.”

“Perhaps we should.” Grantaire agreed easily enough.

They stood by the open window and true enough, light was threatening to eclipse the dark. A new day was near and come nightfall their conversation would be mostly forgotten by the pair, but for tonight they stood in concord as their words mulled over in the other’s head.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I didn't work very long on this, so I hope it's okay.


End file.
